


one of these days, our love ignites

by frecklier



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Suki, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Flirting, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Sexuality Crisis, Sokka (Avatar)-centric, at the end, how is that not a tag yet, i apologize for how little zuko is actually in this lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25123654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frecklier/pseuds/frecklier
Summary: “Are you and Sparky dating?” Toph asked one morning.“What?” Sokka muttered. He was looking through the cabinets, trying to find a good black tea to wake himself up.“I know that you two are dating. I heard you walk into his room last night,” she said. Sokka dropped the canister of tea onto his head.--------Sokka is very deliberately not confronting his feelings about Zuko. The rest of the Gaang have no such reservations.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 1189





	one of these days, our love ignites

**Author's Note:**

> title is from bedouine's "one of these days"

1 —

Aang talked to him about it first.

If you had asked him, he would’ve probably said something about how being the Avatar makes him more in tune with human emotions or something.

The kid and Zuko had just gotten back from being taught by the Sun Warriors. Sokka was glad that Aang was learning to firebend — the ability was crucial in the plan of attack he was developing. He couldn't have helped but notice that something else was different after the trip. Aang seemed a little taller, a little wiser. Sokka didn't really know how that worked, but he assumed it came with the territory of mastering the four elements.

He noticed that Zuko had changed too. The older boy seemed more secure in his skin. He talked to the group more, even if it was just a few words here and there. He was a more patient teacher to Aang. On rare occasions, he even smiled.

Sokka was thinking about these changes at dinner one night. Zuko sat across from him — participating in family dinner was another recent developments. Haru made some dumb joke and Zuko laughed. He actually laughed! Well, it was really more just blowing out of his nose a little quicker than normal, but still, it came with a smile. For some reason, Sokka wasn’t able to look away. He just kept gazing at the way the reflection of the fire danced in Zuko’s golden eyes.

He felt Aang watching him from his left side.

"What are you looking at me for?" Sokka questioned.

"Oh, nothing," the preteen replied in a saccharine voice with a glint in his eye. He lowered his voice to ask the next question, so as not to be overheard. “Zuko was a a good addition to the group, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess so. He’s a lot better when he’s not trying to kill us.”

“Yeah. Zuko’s great.”

“What’s your point?” Sokka began to get suspicious.

“Just that I like Zuko. And I’m glad that you like him. In fact, if you wanted to like him even more, that’s good too!”

Sokka was getting frustrated at how vague the kid was being. Why does Aang think that being the Avatar gives him a pass on being cryptic and weird? “Like him more? What are you saying?”

“All I’m saying is that I give you my blessing.”

Sokka just shook his head. He realized he wouldn’t figure out what he was hearing in a million years. Instead, he told a joke about Appa, trying to coax another laugh from Zuko. He didn’t really know why, but he knew that he wanted Zuko smile again.

He heard Aang sigh next to him.

2 —

Suki said something about it on the warship.

They were coming home from that hell, that horrible place, that prison. Sokka was sure that what he had seen there, what the guards had made him do, would keep him up for weeks. He was infinitely glad to have his dad and Suki back, though. He kept thanking Tui and La that Zuko was there to help him. It was a sentiment he had thought a lot more recently. It seemed like he was thinking about Zuko a lot more recently in general — his courage, his intelligence, his sly wit that always caught Sokka off-guard.

Sokka and Suki were both awake, the others on their sleep shifts for the night. Having his (girl?)friend back made Sokka’s heart feel full. He and Suki were so in sync with each other. That’s why he was surprised when she told him they needed to talk.

“Listen, Sokka,” the Kyoshi Warrior started, “I’m so thankful that you came to help me.”

“Of course I did,” he responded with a slight smile.

“But, I need to be completely honest with you.” She took a steadying breath. “I’m kind of… involved with someone. Someone who’s not you.”

That was a blow Sokka didn’t expect. His face fell. He knew that it had been a long time since he saw Suki, but he had thought they had something special, something worth waiting for. He just stammered out, “What?” after a few seconds of silence.

“I want to be clear that I still love you, Sokka. I really do. I just love you more as a friend than as a boyfriend.”

Sokka was quiet for a few minutes. He watched Yue hanging in the sky, a silent reminder of other things he had lost. “I see where you’re coming from,” he finally said. “I don’t want to force you into something with me if you don’t feel the same way. It _has_ been a while, hasn’t it.”

The two let the next few minutes pass in now-companionable (if not slightly awkward) silence.

“So who’s the guy?” Sokka ends up asking. He didn’t think he was ready to hear Suki gush about him or anything, but she’s his friend. He wanted her to share her life with him.

Suki clearly hadn’t been expecting the question from the way her eyebrows shoot up into her hair. “Oh! Um, okay. Well, it’s not a guy, to start.” Sokka’s brain shorted out. As Suki kept talking, he heard static. “Her name is Hua. She joined the Warriors right before I was captured and-“

Sokka cut her off. His mouth felt dry. “It’s - it’s a girl?”

Suki mistook his confusion for anger. “Yeah. I thought you would be okay with that.” She glared at him and crossed her arms.

“No, no, I just - I didn’t know you could do that. That you could like girls and guys.”

Realization dawned on the warrior. She spoke as gently as possible, “I can, and I do. I like people of any gender.”

“In the South Pole we don’t really talk about that stuff.” In childhood, Sokka had only ever seen wives with husbands. Rarely, there would be a pair of older boys walking hand in hand or two teenage girls laying next to each other on the dock. He just never knew that there was an option that wasn’t just one or the other. His dad had never given his only son any sort of ‘talk.’ “And… that’s okay?” He asked Suki. “It’s okay that you like everyone?”

The small smile his friend (and, yeah, that sounds right, friend) gave him lifted the weight of twenty anvils off of his chest. “Yeah, Sokka. It’s alright.”

He thought about all the boys he knew: Tulok, who was two years older than Sokka and went to fight with the rest of the warriors; Teo and his creative mind; Zuko. “Oh. I, um, I think that might… be me too?” He hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.

Suki nodded and pulled Sokka in close for a hug. “Thank you for telling me. I know it’s hard.” They stayed in the embrace for a while, Suki holding on until Sokka chose to pull away. Both their eyes were a little misty.

“So,” she started back up again, “what’s up with you and Zuko?”

“Shut up!” Sokka said, laughing through his tears. He gave the girl a shove and figured that everything might be alright soon.

3 —

Katara was quick to pick up on the developments at Boiling Rock.

The night after he had gotten back with Zuko, Suki, their dad, and Chit Sang in tow, there was the biggest family dinner they had had yet. Hakoda, being the expert fisherman that he was, managed to catch more than Sokka had since they were at the temple. For the first time in a long time, Sokka was happy. For just a second he was able to put out of his mind the war and the destruction and the nightmares, put off the crushing weight go the world on his shoulders. He was just a sixteen-year-old kid with his friends and his family.

He was sitting on a log beside the campfire with Zuko on the ground in front of him. He was glad that he bonded with the ex-prince during their escapade. He trusted Zuko so much more, and he liked that Zuko trusted him, that he would actually look Sokka in the eye and wouldn’t flinch if Sokka came too close. Sokka was reminded of that fact when Zuko casually leaned back onto Sokka’s knee. The smile Sokka made was ridiculous, he could tell without a mirror. He slowly reached his hand downwards, making eye contact with Zuko briefly to ask a silent permission. The other boy gave a slight nod, and Sokka began playing with his hair.

He was overjoyed that Zuko trusted him enough to touch him at all, let alone play with his hair. Plus, it was really, really nice hair. Sokka was thinking about how soft it was when he heard a small huff from the other side of the circle. He looked up from the top of Zuko’s head to find Katara glaring at him. He raised his eyebrows in question, but his sister just rolled her eyes and turned away.

The next morning, Sokka was watching Aang and Zuko practicing their firebending forms. It had become part of his daily routine, to watch them while eating breakfast. He liked to study their movements as a way of gaining intel on how firebender guards would fight during the attack. It also didn’t hurt that Zuko often taught Aang shirtless.

Katara sat next to him, not saying anything for a few moments.

“You know,” she started, “you don’t have to be so obvious.”

Sokka turned to her with a puzzled expression. “Obvious about what?”

“Obvious about your flirting with Zuko.“

“ _What_?” Sokka nearly screamed. It was enough that the benders turned to glance at the siblings.

“What do you mean ‘what’? The flirting! The casual touches; the laughing at his extremely unfunny jokes — although that could just be you; the pet names; everything.”

“I - I -“ he could barely get the words out. “I don’t call Zuko pet names! Name one.”

“Well, there’s jerkbender.”

“That’s just because he is a jerkbender! How is that flirting, anyways? Toph calls him Sparky. Do you think she’s flirting with him?”

“No, but Toph doesn’t also call the ex-prince of the Fire Nation ‘prettyboy.’ She also doesn’t play with his or longingly gaze at him when she thinks he’s not looking.”

Sokka couldn’t believe was he was hearing. He was _not_ flirting. It was just joking around, even if he did have feelings for Zuko, which he didn’t. He nervously rubbed at the back of his neck.

Katara seemed to take pity on her brother. She began again, “Look, all I’m saying is that if you were flirting with him, I would be okay with that. That he’s a boy.“ She let that sit for a second before continuing, saying, “I just want you to be careful with Zuko. I still don’t think you should trust him.”

Sokka’s relief quickly morphed to exasperation. “Are you serious, Katara? He saved my life, Suki’s life, and Dad’s life. When are you gonna realize that we can trust him — that I trust him?” He could tell he was getting angrier at each line, but he couldn’t stop talking. “Zuko is intelligent, and passionate, and so _caring,_ and gentle. And even if he wasn’t all of those things and more, I can make my own decisions. Have you forgotten that I’m your older brother?”

At that, Sokka got up and left in a huff. He heard Katara call after him, but he was too worked up to talk to her.

Later, the siblings apologized to each other. But Katara clocked how Sokka sat a little further away from Zuko the next night, and how Zuko’s face fell because of it. She told herself to give Zuko a chance. If Sokka liked him, then he must be a little good.

4 —

Toph, as always, was straight to the point.

“Are you and Sparky dating?” She asked. It was morning in the Fire Lord’s summer palace on Ember Island, the day after they had all gone to see the play. Sokka, still bleary with sleep, barely processed what the earthbender had asked him.

“What?” He muttered. He was looking through the cabinets, trying to find a good black tea to wake himself up.

“I know that you and Zuko are dating. I heard you walk into his room last night,” she said smugly. Sokka dropped the canister of tea onto his head.

“Idon’tknowwhatyou’retalkingabout,” he rushed out. He turned to look at the younger girl, and he knew he was caught. Toph didn’t call herself the human lie detector for no reason. “Okay, fine. I did go to talk to him yesterday. It was because I couldn’t sleep. I just kept thinking about that play and all those people cheering for our, you know, deaths. So I talked to Zuko. Big deal. We’re not dating.” He conveniently left off the fact that he wanted them to be.

Toph, for once, showed mercy. “Okay, boomerang boy. I believe you. I still think you should date, though.” Then, she got the biggest grin on her mischievous face. “Should I talk to him for you?”

“Nope. Absolutely not. Toph, I swear to Yue that if you even think about it-“ Sokka’s threat was cut off by Zuko’s appearance in the kitchen. He gave Sokka a tired smile, only having gotten a few hours of sleep last night. Sokka felt the tension leave his body as he began making tea with the other boy.

Toph just scoffed. “Idiots,” she grumbled, intentionally loudly. The two boys pretended not to hear her.

5 —

Iroh didn’t have to say anything.

Sokka had been beside Zuko’s bed in the hospital for the past two days. Katara’s healing water helped him survive Azula’s lighting strike, but the new Firelord was still in rough shape. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness, but Sokka wanted to be the first thing Zuko saw when he woke up.

He heard heavy footsteps come up behind him. Without looking, Sokka knew it was Iroh. He knew the old man was just as worried about Zuko as he was.

For a moment, Sokka was worried about how this would look. He was grasping Zuko’s hand, eyes red-rimmed from a combination of sleeplessness and tears. Iroh just sat down next to Sokka and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

Sokka startled when Iroh began speaking in his low, raspy voice. “My nephew often does not believe that good things will come to him. He does not believe he deserves to be loved. I know that he does. You know it too. The only way that Zuko will believe it is if someone tells him.”

“Yes, sir,” Sokka answered. He wasn’t ignorant. He knew what Iroh was telling him to do. Sokka thought back to all the times in their short friendship that he could have lost Zuko. His eyes welled with tears again. He made a promise to himself to let Zuko know how he felt.

The old man and the warrior sat next to each other in silence, bonding over their love for the sleeping boy in front of them.

+1 —

Zuko was the last to figure it out.

It had been a year since the Battle of Sozin’s Comet, as the historians had taken to calling it. Zuko had been learning the ins and the outs of running a country. He had asked Sokka to stay with him for a little while as an advisor to help in the transition. Sokka, of course, had accepted. He had come to terms with the fact that anything Zuko asked of him, he would do.

Sokka still hadn’t made good on his promise to himself. He ran through the reasons why in his head often enough: he didn’t want to distract Zuko, they never had a moment alone, he had more important things to focus on. Sokka knew those reasons were bullshit. In truth, he was scared. He had never felt unsure in love before — not with Yue and not with Suki. He had always been the brave one. Why did Zuko turn him into mush?

One afternoon they were sitting in Zuko’s makeshift office. It was really just one of the bedrooms with an extra desk, but Zuko had refused to use the same office his father had, so he was doing all his work here until they find a room to make into a real office space.

Sokka was on the couch, reading over a treaty between the Fire Nation and Omashu. He felt a pair of eyes on him and looked up. His blue eyes met gold ones. He was surprised. Sokka knew that Zuko would look at him when he thought Sokka wasn’t looking, but he would always just look down and blush or pretend to be interested in something else. This time, they looked right at each other.

The water tribe boy broke eye contact first. He couldn’t go around gazing deeply into his best friend’s eyes. Who does that? He tried to focus on the paper at hand, until he heard Zuko take a steadying breath from where he was standing by his desk.

“Sokka,” the taller boy rasped out. Sokka looked up at him and saw that his eyes were shining a little. “Do you like me?”

It was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the air. He couldn’t breathe. _Zuko knows. Zuko knows,_ he just kept repeating to himself. He was going to be kicked out of the palace. He was going to be ostracized. He was going to have to flee the Fire Nation and never return.

Zuko saw the other boy’s distress and went on to explain himself. “I was just thinking, you put your life on hold to come, what, be an advisor for the ruler of a country you’re not from? Sometimes, you get nervous around me too. You don’t think I notice but I do. I notice everything about you.” _Oh fuck, he has me pinned,_ Sokka thought. “I’m asking because I like you too.”

“You… you what?” Sokka’s cognitive dissonance was off the charts.

“I like you,” Zuko stated. He had a small smirk on his face.

Sokka couldn’t stop what was about to come out of his mouth even if he wanted to. “Dude, I’ve been in love with you for like, a year and a half.”

“Really?” Zuko’s voice held a sort of reverence.

“Yeah, jerkbender. I have.”

Sokka stood and closed the gap between the two. Their heads bent together and they parted their lips, sharing breaths for a few moments. It was Zuko who leaned in to close the gap between them first. The kiss started as a small peck, but turned into something deeper. Sokka felt a head rush from being so close to Zuko, finally. He smiled into the kiss.

When they pulled away, Sokka said, “Spirits, I can’t we spent so much time not doing this.”

“We have all the time in the world now,” Zuko replied, and kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> some fun facts:  
> \- tulok (the boy sokka mentions) is an inuit name meaning "warrior" according to the baby name websites i saw, which i thought was fitting  
> \- i tried to make sokka's experience growing up as close in line to real inuit communities based on my (albeit limited) research of what lgbt+ inuit people said about their experiences  
> \- i gave suki a gf bc i just love it for her  
> \- katara: i have no problem with u liking men if the men are NOT zuko (but she later comes around so its all good)  
>    
> hope u liked this !!


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